PUEBLO, Colo. (KDVR) — After numerous delays in the trial of the man accused of killing Kelsie Schelling in 2013, Donthe Lucas was found guilty by a jury in in a Pueblo courtroom.
Schelling, 21, was eight weeks pregnant when she disappeared on Feb. 4, 2013, after driving from Denver to Pueblo.
She reportedly texted a photo of her eight-week ultrasound to Lucas, then made the two-hour trip from Denver to meet Lucas at his request.
She arrived at a Walmart store just after 11 p.m., and nearly an hour later, texted that she was “tired of waiting.”
Surveillance video captured outside the Walmart in Pueblo showed Schelling’s black 2011 Chevrolet Cruze being parked on the south end of the parking lot. Two days later, on Feb. 6, an unidentified man picked up the car and drove away. The car was recovered the next day at St. Mary Corwin Hospital. It had been abandoned.
In 2017, the Pueblo Police Department said it found evidence while excavating the backyard of where Lucas once lived in Pueblo.
Four years after Schelling’s disappearance, Lucas was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty to the crime.
Schelling’s body has never been found. A judge ruled in 2018 that there was no “digital footprint” to indicate that she was still alive.